


anarchist communism - its basis and principles

by angstywasp



Category: Political - Fandom
Genre: Communism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-19 05:53:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29870130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angstywasp/pseuds/angstywasp
Summary: -free use-sourced from the anarchist library (anti-copywrite)
Collections: Political and society fics





	1. Chapter 1

**Anarchist Communism: Its Basis and Principles**   
**Pëtr Kropotkin**

**chapter 1**

Anarchism, the no-government system of socialism, has a double origin. It is an outgrowth of  
the two great movements of thought in the economic and the political fields which characterize  
the nineteenth century, and especially it is second part. In common with all socialists, the anarchists hold that the private ownership of land, capital, and machinery has had its time; that it is  
condemned to disappear; and that all requisites for production must, and will, become the common property of society, and be managed in common by the producers of wealth. And in common  
with the most advanced representatives of political radicalism, they maintain that the ideal of the  
the political organization of society is a condition of things where the functions of government are  
reduced to a minimum, and the individual recovers his full liberty of initiative and action for  
satisfying, by means of free groups and federations – freely constituted – all the infinitely varied  
needs of the human being.  
As regards socialism, most of the anarchists arrive at its ultimate conclusion, that is, at a complete negation of the wage-system and at communism. And with reference to political organization, by giving a further development to the above-mentioned part of the radical program, they  
arrive at the conclusion that the ultimate aim of the society is the reduction of the functions of government to nil – that is, to a society without government, to anarchy. The anarchists maintain,  
moreover, that such being the ideal of social and political organization, they must not remit it to  
future centuries. but that only those changes in our social organization which are in accordance  
with the above double ideal, and constitute an approach to it, will have a chance of life and be  
beneficial for the commonwealth.  
As to the method followed by the anarchist thinker, it entirely differs from that followed by the  
utopists. The anarchist thinker does not resort to metaphysical conceptions (like ”natural rights,”  
the ”duties of the State,” and so on) to establish what are, in his opinion, the best conditions  
for realizing the greatest happiness of humanity. He follows, on the contrary, the course traced  
by the modern philosophy of evolution. He studies human society as it is now and was in the  
past; and without either endowing humanity as a whole or separate individuals, with superior  
qualities which they do not possess, he merely considers society as an aggregation of organisms  
trying to find out the best ways of combining the wants of the individual with those of cooperation for the welfare of the species. He studies society and tries to discover its tendencies past  
and present, its growing needs, intellectual and economic, and in his ideal, he merely points out  
in which direction evolution goes. He distinguishes between the real wants and tendencies of  
human aggregations and the accidents (want of knowledge, migrations, wars, conquests) which  
have prevented these tendencies from being satisfied. And he concludes that the two most prominent, although often unconscious, tendencies throughout our history have been: first, a tendency  
towards integrating labor for the production of all riches in common, so as finally to render it  
impossible to discriminate the part of the common production due to the separate individual;  
and second, a tendency towards the fullest freedom of the individual in the prosecution of all  
aims, beneficial both for himself and for society at large. The ideal of the anarchist is thus a mere  
summing up of what he considers to be the next phase of evolution. It is no longer a matter of  
faith; it is a matter of scientific discussion.  
In fact, one of the leading features of this century is the growth of socialism and the rapid  
spreading of socialist views among the working-classes. How could it be otherwise? We have  
witnessed an unparalleled sudden increase of our powers of production, resulting in an accumulation n of wealth that has outstripped the most sanguine expectations. But owing to our wage  
system, this increase of wealth – due to the combined efforts of men of science, of managers, and  
workmen as well – has resulted only in an unprecedented accumulation of wealth in the hands  
of the owners of capital; while an increase of misery for great numbers, and insecurity of life  
for all, have been the lot of the workmen. The unskilled laborers, in continuous search for labor,  
are falling into an unheard-of destitution. And even the best-paid artisans and skilled workmen  
labor under the permanent menace of being thrown, in their turn, into the same conditions as  
the unskilled paupers, in consequence of some of the continuous and unavoidable fluctuations  
of industry and caprices of capital.  
The chasm between the modern millionaire who squanders the produce of human labor in a  
gorgeous and vain luxury, and the pauper reduced to a miserable and insecure existence, is thus  
growing wider and wider, so as to break the very unity of society – the harmony of its life – and  
to endanger the progress of its further development.  
At the same time, workingmen are less and less inclined to patiently endure this division of  
society into two classes, as they themselves become more and more conscious of the wealth-producing power of modern industry, of the part played by labor in the production of wealth,  
and of their own capacities of the organization. In proportion as all classes of the community take  
a more lively part in public affairs and knowledge spreads among the masses, their longing for  
equality becomes stronger, and their demands for social reorganization become louder and louder.  
They can be ignored no more. The worker claims his share in the riches he produces; he claims  
his share in the management of production; and he claims not only some additional well-being  
but also his full rights in the higher enjoyments of science and art. These claims, which formerly  
were uttered only by the social reformer, begin now to be made by a daily growing minority of  
those who work in the factory or till the acre. And they so conform to our feelings of justice that  
they find support in a daily growing minority among the privileged classes themselves. Socialism  
becomes thus the idea of the nineteenth century, and neither coercion nor pseudo-reforms can  
stop its further growth.  
Much hope of improvement was placed, of course, in the extension of political rights to the  
working classes. But these concessions, unsupported as they were by corresponding changes  
in economic relations, proved delusions. They did not materially improve the conditions of the  
great bulk of the workmen. Therefore, the watchword of socialism is: ”Economic freedom is the  
only secure basis for political freedom.” And as long as the present wage system, with all its bad  
consequences, remains unaltered, the socialist watchword will continue to inspire the workmen.  
Socialism will continue to grow until it has realized its program.  
Side by side with this great movement of thought in economic matters, a like movement has  
been going on with regard to political rights, political organization, and the functions of government. Government has been submitted to the same criticism as capital. While most of the radicals  
saw in universal suffrage and republican institutions the last word of political wisdom, a further  
step was made by the few. The very functions of government and the State, as also their relations  
to the individual, were submitted to a sharper and deeper criticism. Representative government  
having been tried by experiment on a wide field, its defects became more and more prominent.  
It became obvious that these defects are not merely accidental but inherent in the system itself.  
Parliament and its executive proved to be unable to attend to all the numberless affairs of the  
community and to conciliate the varied and often opposite interests of the separate parts of a  
State. Election proved unable to find out the men who might represent a nation, and manage, otherwise than in a party spirit, the affairs they are compelled to legislate upon. These defects  
become so striking that the very principles of the representative system were criticized and their  
justness doubted.  
Again, the dangers of a centralized government became still more conspicuous when the socialists came to the front and asked for a further increase of the powers of government by entrusting  
it with the management of the immense field covered now by the economic relations between  
individuals. The question was asked whether a government entrusted with the management of  
industry and trade would not become a permanent danger for liberty and peace, and whether it  
even would be able to be a good manager?  
The socialists of the earlier part of this century did not fully realize the immense difficulties of  
the problem. Convinced as they were of the necessity of economic reforms, most of them took  
no notice of the need of freedom for the individual. And we have had social reformers ready to  
submit society to any kind of theocracy, or dictatorship in order to obtain reforms in a socialist  
sense. Therefore we have seen in England and also on the Continent the division of men of  
advanced opinions into political radicals and socialists – the former looking with distrust on the  
latter, as they saw in them a danger for the political liberties which have been won by the civilized  
nations after a long series of struggles. And even now, when the socialists all over Europe have  
become political parties, and profess the democratic faith, there remains among most impartial  
men a well-founded fear of the Volksstaat or ”popular State” being as great a danger to liberty  
as any form of autocracy if its government be entrusted with the management of all the social  
organization including the production and distribution of wealth.  
Recent evolution, however, has prepared the way for showing the necessity and possibility of  
a higher form of social organization which may guarantee economic freedom without reducing  
the individual to the role of a slave to the State. The origins of government have been carefully  
studied, and all metaphysical conceptions as to its divine or ”social contract” derivation having  
been laid aside, it appears that it is among us of a relatively modern origin, and that its powers  
have grown precisely in proportion as the division of society into the privileged and unprivileged  
classes was growing in the course of ages. Representative government has also been reduced to its  
real value – that of an instrument which has rendered services in the struggle against autocracy,  
but not an ideal of free political organization. As to the system of philosophy which saw in the  
State a leader of progress, it was more and more shaken as it became evident that progress is the  
most effective when it is not checked by State interference. It has thus become obvious that a  
further advance in social life does not lie in the direction of a further concentration of power and  
regulative functions in the hands of a governing body, but in the direction of decentralization,  
both territorial and functional – in a subdivision of public functions with respect both to their  
sphere of action and to the character of the functions; it is in the abandonment to the initiative  
of freely constituted groups of all those functions which are now considered as the functions of  
government.  
This current of thought has found its expression not merely in literature, but also to a limited  
extent in life. The uprising of the Paris Commune, followed by that of the Commune of Cartagena  
– a movement of which the historical bearing seems to have been quite overlooked – opened a  
new page of history. If we analyze not only this movement in itself, but also the impression it left  
in the minds and the tendencies manifested during the communal revolution, we must recognize  
in it an indication showing that in the future human agglomerations which are more advanced  
in their social development will try to start an independent life; and that they will endeavor to convert the more backward people of a nation by example, instead of imposing their opinions by  
law and force, or submitting themselves to the majority-rule, which always is a mediocrity-rule.  
At the same time the failure of representative government within the Commune itself proved  
that self-government and self-administration must be carried further than in a merely territorial  
sense. To be effective they must also be carried into the various functions of life within the free  
community. A merely territorial limitation of the sphere of action of government will not do –  
representative government being as deficient in a city as it is in a nation. Life gave thus a further  
point in favor of the no-government theory, and a new impulse to anarchist thought.  
Anarchists recognize the justice of both the just-mentioned tendencies towards economic and  
political freedom, and see in them two different manifestations of the very same need of equality  
which constitutes the very essence of all struggles mentioned by history. Therefore, in common  
with all socialists, the anarchist says to the political reformer: ”No substantial reform in the sense  
of political equality and no limitation of the powers of government can be made as long as society  
is divided into two hostile camps, and the laborer remains, economically speaking, a slave to his  
employer.” But to the state socialist we say also: ”You cannot modify the existing conditions of  
property without deeply modifying at the same time the political organization. You must limit  
the powers of government and renounce parliamentary rule. To each new economic phase of life  
corresponds a new political phase. Absolute monarchy corresponded to the system of serfdom.  
Representative government corresponds to capital rule. Both, however, are class-rule. But in a  
society where the distinction between capitalist and laborer has disappeared, there is no need of  
such a government; it would be an anachronism, a nuisance. Free workers would require a free  
organization, and this cannot have any other basis than free agreement and free cooperation,  
without sacrificing the autonomy of the individual to the all-pervading interference of the State.  
The no-capitalist system implies the no-government system.”  
Meaning thus the emancipation of man from the oppressive powers of capitalism and government as well, the system of anarchism becomes a synthesis of the two powerful currents of  
thought which characterize our century.  
In arriving at these conclusions anarchism proves to be in accordance with the conclusions  
arrived at by the philosophy of evolution. By bringing to light the plasticity of organization, the  
philosophy of evolution has shown the admirable adaptability of organisms to their conditions of  
life, and the ensuing development of such faculties as render more complete both the adaptations  
of the aggregates to their surroundings and those of each of the constituent parts of the aggregate  
to the needs of free cooperation. It has familiarized us with the circumstance that throughout organic nature the capacities for life in common grow in proportion as the integration of organisms  
into compound aggregates becomes more and more complete; and it has enforced thus the opinion already expressed by social moralists as to the perfectibility of human nature. It has shown  
us that, in the long run of the struggle for existence, ”the fittest” will prove to be those who  
combine intellectual knowledge with the knowledge necessary for the production of wealth, and  
not those who are now the richest because they, or their ancestors, have been momentarily the  
strongest.  
By showing that the ”struggle for existence” must be conceived not merely in its restricted  
sense of a struggle between individuals for the means of subsistence but in its wider sense of  
adaptation of all individuals of the species to the best conditions for the survival of the species,  
as well as for the greatest possible sum of life and happiness for each and all, it has permitted us  
to deduce the laws of moral science from the social needs and habits of mankind. It has shownus the infinitesimal role played by positive law in moral evolution, and the immense role played  
by the natural growth of altruistic feelings, which develop as soon as the conditions of life favor  
their growth. It has thus enforced the opinion of social reformers as to the necessity of modifying  
the conditions of life for improving man, instead of trying to improve human nature by moral  
teachings while life works in an opposite direction. Finally, by studying human society from the  
biological point of view, it has come to the conclusions arrived at by anarchists from the study of  
history and present tendencies as to further progress being in the line of socialization of wealth  
and integrated labor combined with the fullest possible freedom of the individual.  
It has happened in the long run of ages that everything which permits men to increase their  
production, or even to continue it, has been appropriated by the few. The land, which derives its  
value precisely from its being necessary for an ever-increasing population, belongs to the few,  
who may prevent the community from cultivating it. The coal pits, which represent the labor of  
generations, and which also derive their value from the wants of the manufacturers and railroads,  
from the immense trade carried on and the density of population, belong again to the few, who  
have even the right of stopping the extraction of coal if they choose to give another use to their  
capital. The lace-weaving machine, which represents, in its present state of perfection, the work  
of three generations of Lancashire weavers, belongs also to the few; and if the grandsons of the  
very same weaver who invented the first lace-weaving machine claim their right to bring one  
of these machines into motion, they will be told, ”Hands off! this machine does not belong to  
you!” The railroads, which mostly would be useless heaps of iron if not for the present dense  
population, its industry, trade, and traffic, belong again to the few – to a few shareholders who  
may not even know where the railway is situated which brings them a yearly income larger than  
that of a medieval king. And if the children of those people who died by thousands in digging  
the tunnels should gather and go – a ragged and starving crowd – to ask bread or work from the  
shareholders, they would be met with bayonets and bullets.  
Who is the sophist who will dare to say that such an organization is just? But what is unjust  
cannot be beneficial to mankind; and it is not. In consequence of this monstrous organization,  
the son of a workman, when he is able to work, finds no acre to till, no machine to set in motion,  
unless he agrees to sell his labor for a sum inferior to its real value. His father and grandfather  
have contributed to drain the field, or erect the factory, to the full extent of their capacities – and  
nobody can do more than that – but he comes into the world more destitute than a savage. If he  
resorts to agriculture, he will be permitted to cultivate a plot of land, but on the condition that  
he gives up part of his product to the landlord. If he resorts to industry, he will be permitted to  
work, but on the condition that out of the thirty shillings he has produced, ten shillings or more  
will be pocketed by the owner of the machine. We cry out against the feudal barons who did not  
permit anyone to settle on the land otherwise than on payment of one quarter of the crops to the  
lord of the manor; but we continue to do as they did – we extend their system. The forms have  
changed, but the essence has remained the same. And the workman is compelled to accept the  
feudal conditions which we call ”free contract,” because nowhere will he find better conditions.  
Everything has been appropriated by somebody; he must accept the bargain, or starve.  
Owing to this circumstance, our production takes a wrong turn. It takes no care of the needs of  
the community; its only aim is to increase the profits of the capitalist. And we have, therefore, –  
the continuous fluctuations of industry, the crisis coming periodically nearly every ten years, and  
throwing out of employment several hundred thousand men who are brought to complete misery,  
whose children grow up in the gutter, ready to become inmates of the prison and workhouse. The workmen being unable to purchase with their wages the riches they are producing, industry must  
search for markets elsewhere, amid the middle classes of other nations. It must find markets, in  
the East, in Africa, anywhere; it must increase, by trade, the number of its serfs in Egypt, in  
India, in the Congo. But everywhere it finds competitors in other nations which rapidly enter  
into the same line of industrial development. And wars, continuous wars, must be fought for the  
supremacy in the world-market – wars for the possession of the East, wars for getting possession  
of the seas, wars for the right of imposing heavy duties on foreign merchandise. The thunder of  
European guns never ceases; whole generations are slaughtered from time to time; and we spend  
in armaments the third of the revenue of our States – a revenue raised, the poor know with what  
difficulties.  
And finally, the injustice of our partition of wealth exercises the most deplorable effect on our  
morality. Our principles of morality say: ”Love your neighbor as yourself”; but let a child follow  
this principle and take off his coat to give it to the shivering pauper, and his mother will tell  
him that he must never understand moral principles in their direct sense. If he lives according  
to them, he will go barefoot, without alleviating the misery around him! Morality is good on  
the lips, not in deeds. Our preachers say, ”Who works, prays,” and everyone endeavors to make  
others work for him. They say, ”Never lie!” and politics are a big lie. And we accustom ourselves  
and our children to live under this double-faced morality, which is hypocrisy, and to conciliate  
our double-facedness by sophistry. Hypocrisy and sophistry become the very basis of our life.  
But society cannot live under such a morality. It cannot last so: it must, it will, be changed.  
The question is thus no more a mere question of bread. It covers the whole field of human  
activity. But it has at its bottom a question of social economy, and we conclude: The means of  
production and of satisfaction of all needs of society, having been created by the common efforts  
of all, must be at the disposal of all. The private appropriation of requisites for production is  
neither just nor beneficial. All must be placed on the same footing as producers and consumers  
of wealth. That will be the only way for society to seep out of the bad conditions which have been  
created by centuries of wars and oppression. That will be the only guarantee for further progress  
in a direction of equality and freedom, which have always been the real, although unspoken goal  
of humanity.


	2. Chapter 2

**chapter 2**

The views taken in the above as to the combination of efforts being the chief source of our  
wealth explain why most anarchists see in communism the only equitable solution as to the adequate remuneration of individual efforts. There was a time when a family engaged in agriculture  
supplemented by a few domestic trades could consider the corn they raised and the plain woolen  
cloth they wove as productions of their own and nobody else’s labor. Even then such a view was  
not quite correct: there were forests cleared and roads built by common efforts; and even then the  
family had continually to apply for communal help, as is still the case in so many village communities. But now, in the extremely interwoven state of industry of which each branch supports all  
others, such an individualistic view can be held no more. If the iron trade and the cotton industry  
of this country have reached so high a degree of development, they have done so owing to the  
parallel growth of thousands of other industries, great and small; to the extension of the railway  
system; to an increase of knowledge among both the skilled engineers and the mass of the work men; to a certain training in organization slowly developed among producers; and, above all, to  
the world-trade which has itself grown up, thanks to works executed thousands of miles away.  
The Italians who died from cholera in digging the Suez Canal or from ”tunnel-disease” in the St.  
Gothard Tunnel have contributed as much towards the enrichment of this country as the British  
girl who is prematurely growing old in serving a machine at Manchester; and this girl as much  
as the engineer who made a labor-saving improvement in our machinery. How can we pretend  
to estimate the exact part of each of them in the riches accumulated around us?  
We may admire the inventive genius or the organizing capacities of an iron lord; but we must  
recognize that all his genius and energy would not realize one-tenth of what they realize here  
if they were spent in dealing with Mongolian shepherds or Siberian peasants instead of British  
workmen, British engineers, and trustworthy managers. An English millionaire who succeeded  
in giving a powerful impulse to a branch of home industry was asked the other day what were,  
in his opinion, the real causes of his success? His answer was:– ”I always sought out the right  
man for a given branch of the concern, and I left him full independence – maintaining, of course,  
for myself the general supervision.” ”Did you never fail to find such men?” was the next question.  
”Never.” ”But in the new branches which you introduced you wanted a number of new inventions.” ”No doubt; we spent thousands in buying patents.” This little colloquy sums up, in my  
opinion, the real case of those industrial undertakings which are quoted by the advocates of ”an  
adequate remuneration of individual efforts” in the shape of millions bestowed on the managers  
of prosperous industries. It shows in how far the efforts are really ”individual.” Leaving aside the  
thousand conditions which sometimes permit a man to show, and sometimes prevent him from  
showing, his capacities to their full extent, it might be asked in how far the same capacities could  
bring out the same results, if the very same employer could find no trustworthy managers and  
no skilled workmen, and if hundreds of inventions were not stimulated by the mechanical turn  
of mind of so many inhabitants of this country.  
The anarchists cannot consider, like the collectivists, that a remuneration which would be  
proportionate to the hours of labor spent by each person in the production of riches may be  
an ideal, or even an approach to an ideal, society. Without entering here into a discussion as to  
how far the exchange value of each merchandise is really measured now by the amount of labor  
necessary for its production – a separate study must be devoted to the subject – we must say  
that the collectivist ideal seems to us merely unrealizable in a society which has been brought to  
consider the necessaries for production as a common property. Such a society would be compelled  
to abandon the wage-system altogether. It appears impossible that the mitigated individualism  
of the collectivist school could co-exist with the partial communism implied by holding land  
and machinery in common – unless imposed by a powerful government, much more powerful  
than all those of our own times. The present wage system has grown up from the appropriation  
of the necessaries for production by the few; it was a necessary condition for the growth of  
the present capitalist production, and it cannot outlive it, even if an attempt be made to pay to  
the worker the full value of his produce, and hours-of-labor-checks be substituted for money.  
Common possession of the necessaries for production implies the common enjoyment of the  
fruits of the common production; and we consider that an equitable organization of society can  
only arise when every wage-system is abandoned, and when everybody, contributing for the  
common well-being to the full extent, of his capacities, shall enjoy also from the common stock  
of society to the fullest possible extent of his needs. We maintain, moreover, not only that communism is a desirable state of society, but that  
the growing tendency of modern society is precisely towards communism – free communism –  
notwithstanding the seemingly contradictory growth of individualism. In the growth of individualism (especially during the last three centuries) we see merely the endeavors of the individual  
towards emancipating himself from the steadily growing powers of capital and the State. But  
side by side with this growth we see also, throughout history up to our own times, the latent  
struggle of the producers of wealth to maintain the partial communism of old, as well as to reintroduce communist principles in a new shape, as soon as favorable conditions permit it. As soon  
as the communes of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries were enabled to start their own  
independent life, they gave a wide extension to work in common, to trade in common, and to a  
partial consumption in common. All this has disappeared. But the rural commune fights a hard  
struggle to maintain its old features, and it succeeds in maintaining them in many places of Eastern Europe, Switzerland, and even France and Germany; while new organizations, based on the  
same principles, never fail to grow up wherever it is possible.  
Notwithstanding the egotistic turn given to the public mind by the merchant-production of  
our century, the communist tendency is continually reasserting itself and trying to make its  
way into public life. The penny bridge disappears before the public bridge; and the turnpike  
road before the free road. The same spirit pervades thousands of other institutions. Museums,  
free libraries, and free public schools; parks and pleasure grounds; paved and lighted streets,  
free for everybody’s use; water supplied to private dwellings, with a growing tendency towards  
disregarding the exact amount of it used by the individual; tramways and railways which have  
already begun to introduce the season ticket or the uniform tax, and will surely go much further  
in this line when they are no longer private property: all these are tokens showing in what  
direction further progress is to be expected.  
It is in the direction of putting the wants of the individual above the valuation of the service  
he has rendered, or might render, to society; in considering society as a whole, so intimately  
connected together that a service rendered to any individual is a service rendered to the whole  
society. The librarian of the British Museum does not ask the reader what have been his previous  
services to society, he simply gives him the books he requires; and for a uniform fee, a scientific  
society leaves its gardens and museums at the free disposal of each member. The crew of a lifeboat  
do not ask whether the men of a distressed ship are entitled to be rescued at a risk of life; and  
the Prisoners’ Aid Society does not inquire what a released prisoner is worth. Here are men in  
need of a service; they are fellow men, and no further rights are required.  
And if this very city, so egotistic to-day, be visited by a public calamity – let it be besieged, for  
example, like Paris in 187I, and experience during the siege a want of food – this very same city  
would be unanimous in proclaiming that the first needs to be satisfied are those of the children  
and old, no matter what services they may render or have rendered to society. And it would take  
care of the active defenders of the city, whatever the degrees of gallantry displayed by each of  
them. But, this tendency already existing, nobody will deny, I suppose, that, in proportion as  
humanity is relieved from its hard struggle for life, the same tendency will grow stronger. If our  
productive powers were fully applied to increasing the stock of the staple necessities for life; if  
a modification of the present conditions of property increased the number of producers by all  
those who are not producers of wealth now; and if manual labor reconquered its place of honor  
in society, the communist tendencies already existing would immediately enlarge their sphere of  
application. Taking all this into account, and still more the practical aspects of the question as to how private property might become common property, most of the anarchists maintain that the very  
next step to be made by society, as soon as the present regime of property undergoes a modification, will be in a communist sense. We are communists. But our communism is not that of the  
authoritarian school: it is anarchist communism, communism without government, free communism. It is a synthesis of the two chief aims pursued by humanity since the dawn of its history –  
economic freedom and political freedom.  
I have already said that anarchism means no-government. We know well that the word ”anarchy” is also used in current phraseology as synonymous with disorder. But that meaning of  
”anarchy,” being a derived one, implies at least two suppositions. It implies, first, that wherever  
there is no government there is disorder; and it implies, moreover, that order, due to a strong  
government and a strong police, is always beneficial. Both implications, however, are anything  
but proved. There is plenty of order – we should say, of harmony – in many branches of human  
activity where the government, happily, does not interfere. As to the beneficial effects of order,  
the kind of order that reigned at Naples under the Bourbons surely was not preferable to some  
disorder started by Garibaldi; while the Protestants of this country will probably say that the  
good deal of disorder made by Luther was preferable, at any rate, to the order which reigned  
under the Pope. While all agree that harmony is always desirable, there is no such unanimity  
about order, and still less about the ”order” which is supposed to reign in our modern societies.  
So that we have no objection whatever to the use of the word ”anarchy” as a negation of what  
has been often described as order.  
By taking for our watchword anarchy in its sense of no government, we intend to express  
a pronounced tendency of human society. In history we see that precisely those epochs when  
small parts of humanity broke down the power of their rulers and reassumed their freedom  
were epochs of the greatest progress, economic and intellectual. Be it the growth of the free  
cities, whose unrivaled monuments – free work of free associations of workers – still testify to  
the revival of mind and of the well-being of the citizen; be it the great movement which gave  
birth to the Reformation – those epochs when the individual recovered some part of his freedom  
witnessed the greatest progress. And if we carefully watch the present development of civilized  
nations, we cannot fail to discover in it a marked and ever-growing movement towards limiting  
more and more the sphere of action of government, so as to leave more and more liberty to the  
initiative of the individual. After having tried all kinds of government, and endeavored to solve  
the insoluble problem of having a government ”which might compel the individual to obedience,  
without escaping itself from obedience to collectivity,” humanity is trying now to free itself from  
the bonds of any government whatever, and to respond to its needs of organization by the free  
understanding between individuals pursuing the same common aims.  
Home Rule, even for the smallest territorial unit or group, becomes a growing need. Free  
agreement is becoming a substitute for law. And free cooperation a substitute for governmental guardianship. One after the other those activities which were considered as the functions of  
government during the last two centuries are disputed; society moves better the less it is governed. And the more we study the advance made in this direction, as well as the inadequacy of  
governments to fulfill the expectations placed in them, the more we are bound to conclude that  
humanity, by steadily limiting the functions of government, is marching towards reducing them  
finally to nil. We already foresee a state of society where the liberty of the individual will be limited by no laws, no bonds – by nothing else but his own social habits and the necessity, which  
everyone feels, of finding cooperation, support, and sympathy among his neighbors.  
Of course the no-government ethics will meet with at least as many objections as the nocapital economics. Our minds have been so nurtured in prejudices as to the providential functions  
of government that anarchist ideas must be received with distrust. Our whole education, from  
childhood to the grave, nurtures the belief in the necessity of a government and its beneficial  
effects. Systems of philosophy have been elaborated to support this view; history has been written  
from this standpoint; theories of law have been circulated and taught for the same purpose. All  
politics are based on the same principle, each politician saying to people he wants to support  
him: ”Give me the governmental power; I will, I can, relieve you from the hardships of your  
present life.” All our education is permeated with the same teachings. We may open any book  
of sociology, history, law, or ethics: everywhere we find government, its organization, its deeds,  
playing so prominent a part that we grow accustomed to suppose that the State and the political  
men are everything; that there is nothing behind the big statesmen. The same teachings are  
daily repeated in the Press. Whole columns are filled up with minutest records of parliamentary  
debates, of movements of political persons. And, while reading these columns, we too often forget  
that besides those few men whose importance has been so swollen up as to overshadow humanity,  
there is an immense body of men – mankind, in fact – growing and dying, living in happiness or  
sorrow, laboring and consuming, thinking and creating.  
And yet, if we revert from the printed matter to our real life, and cast a broad glance on society  
as it is, we are struck with the infinitesimal part played by government in our life. Millions of human beings live and die without having had anything to do with government. Every day millions  
of transactions are made without the slightest interference of government; and those who enter  
into agreements have not the slightest intention of breaking bargains. Nay, those agreements  
which are not protected by government (those of the exchange, or card debts) are perhaps better  
kept than any others. The simple habit of keeping one’s word, the desire of not losing confidence,  
are quite sufficient in an overwhelming majority of cases to enforce the keeping of agreements.  
Of course it may be said that there is still the government which might enforce them if necessary.  
But without speaking of the numberless cases which could not even be brought before a court,  
everyone who has the slightest acquaintance with trade will undoubtedly confirm the assertion  
that, if there were not so strong a feeling of honor in keeping agreements, trade itself would  
become utterly impossible. Even those merchants and manufacturers who feel not the slightest  
remorse when poisoning their customers with all kinds of abominable drugs, duly labeled, even  
they also keep their commercial agreements. But if such a relative morality as commercial honesty exists now under the present conditions, when enrichment is the chief motive, the same  
feeling will further develop very quickly as soon as robbing someone of the fruits of his labor is  
no longer the economic basis of our life.  
Another striking feature of our century tells in favor of the same no-government tendency.  
It is the steady enlargement of the field covered by private initiative, and the recent growth of  
large organizations resulting merely and simply from free agreement. The railway net of Europe  
– a confederation of so many scores of separate societies – and the direct transport of passengers  
and merchandise over so many lines which were built independently and federated together,  
without even so much as a Central Board of European Railways, is a most striking instance of  
what is already done by mere agreement. If fifty years ago somebody had predicted that railways built by so many separate companies finally would constitute so perfect a net as they do today, he surely would have been treated as a fool. It would have been urged that so many companies, prosecuting their own interests, would never agree without an International Board of  
Railways, supported by an International Convention of the European States, and endowed with  
governmental powers. But no such board was resorted to, and the agreement came nevertheless.  
The Dutch associations of ship and boat owners are now extending their organizations over the  
rivers of Germany and even to the shipping trade of the Baltic. The numberless amalgamated  
manufacturers’ associations, and the syndicates of France, are so many instances in point. If it be  
argued that many of these organizations are organizations for exploitation, that proves nothing,  
because, if men pursuing their own egotistic, often very narrow, interests can agree together,  
better inspired men, compelled to be more closely connected with other groups, will necessarily  
agree still more easily and still better.  
But there also is no lack of free organizations for nobler pursuits. One of the noblest achievements of our century is undoubtedly the Lifeboat Association. Since its first humble start, it has  
saved no less than thirty-two thousand human lives. It makes appeal to the noblest instincts of  
man; its activity is entirely dependent upon devotion to the common cause, while its internal  
organization is entirely based upon the independence of the local committees. The Hospitals Association and hundreds of like organizations, operating on a large scale and covering each a wide  
field, may also be mentioned under this head. But, while we know everything about governments  
and their deeds, what do we know about the results achieved by free cooperation? Thousands  
of volume’ have been written to record the acts of governments; the most trifling amelioration  
due to law has been recorded; its good effects have been exaggerated, its bad effects passed  
by in silence. But where is the book recording what has been achieved by free cooperation of  
well-inspired men? At the same time, hundreds of societies are constituted every day for the satisfaction of some of the infinitely varied needs of civilized man. We have societies for all possible  
kinds of studies – some of them embracing the whole field of natural science, others limited to a  
small special branch; societies for gymnastics, for shorthand-writing, for the study of a separate  
author, for games and all kinds of sports, for forwarding the science of maintaining life, and for  
favoring the art of destroying it; philosophical and industrial, artistic and anti-artistic; for serious  
work and for mere amusement – in short, there is not a single direction in which men exercise  
their faculties without combining together for the accomplishment of some common aim. Every  
day new societies are formed, while every year the old ones aggregate together into larger units,  
federate across the national frontiers, and cooperate in some common work.  
The most striking feature of these numberless free growths is that they continually encroach on  
what was formerly the domain of the State or the Municipality. A householder in a Swiss village  
on the banks of Lake Leman belongs now to at least a dozen different societies which supply him  
with what is considered elsewhere as a function of the municipal government. Free federation of  
independent communes for temporary or permanent purposes lies at the very bottom of Swiss  
life, and to these federations many a part of Switzerland is indebted for its roads and fountains, its  
rich vineyards, well-kept forests, and meadows which the foreigner admires. And besides these  
small societies, substituting themselves for the State within some limited sphere, do we not see  
other societies doing the same on a much wider scale?  
One of the most remarkable societies which has recently arisen is undoubtedly the Red Cross  
Society. To slaughter men on the battle-fields, that remains the duty of the State; but these very  
States recognize their inability to take care of their own wounded: they abandon the task, to a  
great extent, to private initiative. What a deluge of mockeries would not have been cast over the  
poor ”Utopist” who should have dared to say twenty-five years ago that the care of the wounded  
might be left to private societies! ”Nobody would go into the dangerous places! Hospitals would  
all gather where there was no need of them! National rivalries would result in the poor soldiers  
dying without any help, and so on,” – such would have been the outcry. The war of 187I has  
shown how perspicacious those prophets are who never believe in human intelligence, devotion,  
and good sense.  
These facts – so numerous and so customary that we pass by without even noticing them –  
are in our opinion one of the most prominent features of the second half of the nineteenth century. The just-mentioned organisms grew up so naturally, they so rapidly extended and so easily  
aggregated together, they are such unavoidable outgrowths of the multiplication of needs of the  
civilized man, and they so well replace State interference, that we must recognize in them a growing factor of our life. Modern progress is really towards the free aggregation of free individuals  
so as to supplant government in all those functions which formerly were entrusted to it, and  
which it mostly performed so badly.  
As to parliamentary rule and representative government altogether, they are rapidly falling  
into decay. The few philosophers who already have shown their defects have only timidly  
summed up the growing public discontent. It is becoming evident that it is merely stupid to elect  
a few men and to entrust them with the task of making laws on all possible subjects, of which  
subjects most of them are utterly ignorant. It is becoming understood that majority rule is as  
defective as any other kind of rule; and humanity searches and finds new channels for resolving  
the pending questions. The Postal Union did not elect an international postal parliament in  
order to make laws for all postal organizations adherent to the Union. The railways of Europe  
did not elect an international railway parliament in order to regulate the running of the trains  
and the partition of the income of international traffic. And the Meteorological and Geological  
Societies of Europe did not elect either meteorological or geological parliaments to plan polar  
stations, or to establish a uniform subdivision of geological formations and a uniform coloration  
of geological maps. They proceeded by means of agreement. To agree together they resorted  
to congresses; but, while sending delegates to their congresses they did not say to them, ”Vote  
about everything you like – we shall obey.” They put forward questions and discussed them first  
themselves; then they sent delegates acquainted with the special question to be discussed at the  
congress, and they sent delegates – not rulers. Their delegates returned from the congress with  
no laws in their pockets, but with proposals of agreements. Such is the way assumed now (the  
very old way, too) for dealing with questions of public interest-not the way of law-making by  
means of a representative government.  
Representative government has accomplished its historical mission; it has given a mortal blow  
to court-rule; and by its debates it has awakened public interest in public questions. But to see  
in it the government of the future socialist society is to commit a gross error. Each economic  
phase of life implies its own political phase; and it is impossible to touch the very basis of the  
present economic life – private property – without a corresponding change in the very basis of  
the political organization. Life already shows in which direction the change will be made. Not in  
increasing the powers of the State, but in resorting to free organization and free federation in all  
those branches which are now considered as attributes of the State.  
The objections to the above may be easily foreseen. It will be said of course: ”But what is to  
be done with those who do not keep their agreements? What with those who are not inclined  
to work? What with those who would prefer breaking the written laws of society, or – on the  
anarchist hypothesis – its unwritten customs? Anarchism may be good for a higher humanity, –  
not for the men of our own times.”  
First of all, there are two kinds of agreements: there is the free one which is entered upon  
by free consent, as a free choice between different courses equally open to each of the agreeing  
parties. And there is the enforced agreement, imposed by one party upon the other, and accepted  
by the latter from sheer necessity; in fact, it is no agreement at all, it is a mere submission to  
necessity. Unhappily, the great bulk of what are now described as agreements belong to the  
latter category. When a workman sells his labor to an employer and knows perfectly well that  
some part of the value of his produce will be unjustly taken by the employer; when he sells it  
without even the slightest guarantee of being employed so much as six consecutive months, it  
is a sad mockery to call that a free contract. Modern economists may call it free, but the father  
of political economy – Adam Smith – was never guilty of such a misrepresentation. As long as  
three-quarters of humanity are compelled to enter into agreements of that description, force is of  
course necessary, both to enforce the supposed agreements and to maintain such a state of things.  
Force – and a great deal of force – is necessary to prevent the laborers from taking possession of  
what they consider unjustly appropriated by the few; and force is necessary to continually bring  
new ”uncivilized nations” under the same conditions.  
But we do not see the necessity of force for enforcing agreements freely entered upon. We  
never heard of a penalty imposed on a man who belonged to the crew of a lifeboat and at a given  
moment preferred to abandon the association. All that his comrades would do with him, if he  
were guilty of a gross neglect, would probably be to refuse to have anything further to do with  
him. Nor did we hear of fines imposed on a contributor to the dictionary for a delay in his work,  
or of gendarmes driving the volunteers of Garibaldi to the battlefield. Free agreements need not  
be enforced.  
As to the so-often repeated objection that no one would labor if he were not compelled to do so  
by sheer necessity, we heard enough of it before the emancipation of slaves in America, as well as  
before the emancipation of serfs in Russia. And we have had the opportunity of appreciating it at  
its just value. So we shall not try to convince those who can be convinced only by accomplished  
facts. As to those who reason, they ought to know that, if it really was so with some parts of  
humanity at its lowest stages, or if it is so with some small communities, or separate individuals,  
brought to sheer despair by ill success in their struggle against unfavorable conditions, it is not so  
with the bulk of the civilized nations. With us, work is a habit, and idleness an artificial growth. Of  
course when to be a manual worker means to be compelled to work all one’s life long for ten hours  
a day, and often more, at producing some part of something – a pin’s head, for instance; when it  
means to be paid wages on which a family can live only on the condition of the strictest limitation  
of all its needs; when it means to be always under the menace of being thrown tomorrow out of  
employment – and we know how frequent are the industrial crises, and what misery they imply;  
when it means, in a very great number of cases, premature death in a paupers’ infirmary, if not  
in the workhouse; when to be a manual worker signifies to wear a life-long stamp of inferiority  
in the eyes of those very people who live on the work of these ”hands;” when it always means  
the renunciation of all those higher enjoyments that science and art give to man – oh, then there  
is no wonder that everybody – the manual workers as well – has but one dream: that of rising  
to a condition where others would work for him.  
Overwork is repulsive to human nature – not work. Overwork for supplying the few with luxury – not work for the well being of all. Work is a physiological necessity, a necessity of spending  
accumulated bodily energy, a necessity which is health and life itself. If so many branches of useful work are so reluctantly done now, it is merely because they mean overwork, or they are  
improperly organized. But we know – old Franklin knew it – that four hours of useful work  
every day would be more than sufficient for supplying everybody with the comfort of a moderately well-to-do middle-class house, if we all gave ourselves to productive work, and if we did  
not waste our productive powers as we do waste them now.  
As to the childish question, repeated for fifty years: ”Who would do disagreeable work?”  
frankly I regret that none of our savants has ever been brought to do it, be it for only one day in  
his life. If there is still work which is really disagreeable in itself, it is only because our scientific  
men have never cared to consider the means of rendering it less so. They have always known  
that there were plenty of starving men who would do it for a few cents a day.  
As to the third – the chief – objection, which maintains the necessity of a government for  
punishing those who break the law of society, there is so much to say about it that it hardly  
can be touched incidentally. The more we study the question, the more we are brought to the  
conclusion that society is responsible for the anti-social deeds perpetrated in its midst, and that  
no punishment, no prisons, and no hangmen can diminish the numbers of such deeds; nothing  
short of a reorganization of society itself.  
Three quarters of all the acts which are brought before our courts every year have their origin,  
either directly or indirectly, in the present disorganized state of society with regard to the production and distribution of wealth – not in perversity of human nature. As to the relatively few  
anti-social deeds which result from anti-social inclinations of seperate individuals, it is not by  
the prisons, nor even by the resorting to the hangmen, that we can diminish their numbers. By  
our prisons, we merely multiply them and render them worse. By our detectives, our ”price of  
blood,” our executions, and our jails, we spread in society such a terrible flow of basest passions  
and habits, that he who should realize the effects of these institutions to their full extent would be  
frightened by what society is doing under the pretext of maintaining morality. We must search  
for other remedies, and the remedies have been indicated long since.  
Of course now, when a mother in search of food and shelter for her children must pass by  
shops filled with the most refined delicacies of refined gluttony; when gorgeous and insolent  
luxury is displayed side by side with the most execrable misery; when the dog and the horse of  
a rich man are far better cared for than millions of children whose mothers earn a pitiful salary  
in the pit or manufactory; when each ”modest” evening dress of a lady represents eight months,  
or one year, of human labor; when enrichment at somebody else’s expense is the avowed aim of  
the ”upper classes,” and no distinct boundary can be traced between honest and dishonest means  
of making money – then force is the only means of maintaining such a state of things. Then an  
army of policemen, judges, and hangmen becomes a necessary institution.  
But if all our children – all children are our children – received a sound instruction and education – and we have the means of giving it; if every family lived in decent home – and they could  
at the present high pitch of our production; if every boy and girl were taught a handicraft at the  
same time as he or she receives scientific instruction, and not to be a manual producer of wealth  
were considered as a token of inferiority; if men lived in closer contact with one another, and had  
continually to come into contact on those public affairs which now are vested in the few; and if,  
in consequence of a closer contact, we were brought to take as lively an interest in our neighbors’  
difficulties and pains as we formerly took in those of our kinsfolk – then we should not resort  
to policemen and judges, to prisons and executions. Anti-social deeds would be nipped in the  
bud, not punished. The few contests which would arise would be easily settled by arbitrators;  
and no more force would be necessary to impose decisions than is required now for enforcing  
the decisions of the family tribunals of China.  
And here we are brought to consider a great question: what would become of morality in a  
society which recognized no laws and proclaimed the full freedom of the individual? The answer  
is plain. Public morality is independent from, and anterior to, law and religion. Until now, the  
teachings of morality have been associated with religious teachings. But the influence which  
religious teachings formerly exercised on mind has faded of late, and the sanction which morality  
derived from religion has no longer the power it formerly had. Millions and millions grow in our  
cities who have lost the old faith. Is it a reason for throwing morality overboard, and for treating  
it with the same sarcasm as primitive cosmogony?  
Obviously not. No society is possible without certain principles of morality generally recognized. If everyone grew accustomed to deceiving his fellow-men; if we never could rely on each  
other’s promise and words; if everyone treated his fellow as an enemy, against whom every  
means of warfare is justifiable – no society could exist. And we see, in that notwithstanding the  
decay of religious beliefs, the principles of morality remain unshaken. We even see irreligious  
people trying to raise the current standard of morality. The fact is that moral principles are independent of religious beliefs: they are anterior to them. The primitive Tchuktchis have no religion:  
they have only superstitions and fear of the forces of nature; and nevertheless we find with them  
the very same principles of morality which are taught by Christians and Buddhists, Muslims  
and Hebrews. Nay, some of their practices imply a much higher standard of tribal morality than  
that which appears in our civilized society. In fact, each new religion takes its moral principles  
from the only real stock of morality – the moral habits which grow with men as soon as they  
unite to live together in tribes, cities, or nations. No animal society is possible without resulting  
in a growth of certain moral habits of mutual support and even self-sacrifice for the common  
well-being. These habits are a necessary condition for the welfare of the species in its struggle  
for life – cooperation of individuals being a much more important factor in the struggle for the  
preservation of the species than the so-much-spoken-of physical struggle between individuals  
for the means of existence. The ”fittest” in the organic world are those who grow accustomed to  
life in society; and life in society necessarily implies moral habits. As to mankind, it has during  
its long existence developed in its midst a nucleus of social habits, of moral habits, which cannot  
disappear as long as human societies exist. And therefore, notwithstanding the influences to the  
contrary which are now at work in consequence of our present economic relations, the nucleus  
of our moral habits continues to exist. Law and religion only formulate them and endeavor to  
enforce them by their sanction.  
Whatever the variety of theories of morality, all can be brought under three chief categories:  
the morality of religion; the utilitarian morality; the theory of moral habits resulting from the  
very needs of life in society. Each religious morality sanctifies its prescriptions by making them  
originate from revelation; and it tries to impress its teachings on the mind by a promise of reward,  
or punishment, either in this or in a future life. The utilitarian morality maintains the idea of  
reward, but it finds it in man himself. It invites men to analyze their pleasures, to classify them,  
and to give preference to those which are most intense and most durable. We must recognize,  
however, that, although it has exercised some influence, this system has been judged too artificial  
by the great mass of human beings. And finally – whatever its varieties – there is the third system  
of morality which sees in moral actions – in those actions which are most powerful in rendering  
men best fitted for life in society – a mere necessity of the individual to enjoy the joys of his  
brethren, to suffer when some of his brethren are suffering; a habit and a second nature, slowly  
elaborated and perfected by life in society. That is the morality of mankind; and that is also the  
morality of anarchism.  
Such are, in a very brief summary, the leading principles of anarchism. Each of them hurts  
many a prejudice, and yet each of them results from an analysis of the very tendencies displayed  
by human society. Each of them is rich in consequences and implies a thorough revision of many a  
current opinion. And anarchism is not a mere insight into a remote future. Already now, whatever  
the sphere of action of the individual, he can act, either in accordance with anarchist principles  
or on an opposite line. And all that may be done in that direction will be done in the direction to  
which further development goes. All that may be done in the opposite way will be an attempt to  
force humanity to go where it will not go.


	3. Chapter 3

**chapter 3**

_Additional Note to ”Anarchist Communism”_

  
Kropotkin’s earlier writings as to the methods of organizing production and distribution after  
a revolutionary seizure of property were based on the assumption that there would be sufficiency  
of goods for each to take what he needed and to work as much as he felt able. After his experience  
with the Russian Revolution he came to a quite contrary conclusion. He recognized the obstacles  
to production on a new basis as well as the poverty of the capitalist world and expressed his  
changed opinion in a postscript to the Russian edition of Words of a Rebel, published in 1919. His  
method for organizing production follows his previous teaching, but his statement of it after the  
Russian Revolution adds interest to it. (R.N.B.)

  
_Extract from the Postscript of ”Words of a Rebel”_

  
The question of the reconstruction of life by the social revolution has been set forth only in  
general terms. . . . Unfortunately it is necessary to say that socialists and workingmen in general,  
having lost hope in the possibility of revolution in the near future, were not interested in the  
question: What character would it be advisable for the revolution to take? Our comrade Pouget  
has told us, in How we will make the Revolution, how a social revolution could be accomplished  
in France under the direction of the trade unions; how these unions and the congresses would  
be able to expropriate the capitalists and organize production on a new basis without the least  
stoppage of production. It is clear that only the workers through their own organizations would  
ever be able to achieve this, and though I differ from Pouget in certain details, I recommend this  
book to all those who understand the inevitability of the social reconstruction which humanity  
will have to provide for.  
In my own studies in England and Scotland I always tried to find out what was the real life  
of the workers, keeping always in view the following question: What form would the social  
revolution be able to take to pass without too great a shock from private production to a system  
of production and exchange organized by the producers and consumers themselves?  
My examination of this question brought me to two conclusions. The first is that production  
and exchange represented an undertaking so complicated that the plans of the state socialists,  
which lead inevitably to a party directorship, would prove to be absolutely ineffective as soon as  
they were applied to life. No government would be able to organize production if the workers  
themselves through their unions did not do it in each branch of industry; for in all production  
there arise daily thousands of difficulties which no government can solve or foresee. It is certainly  
impossible to foresee everything. Only the efforts of thousands of intelligences working on the  
problems can cooperate in the development of a new social system and find the best solutions  
for the thousands of local needs. . . .  
The second conclusion to which I came was that the present economic life in civilized countries  
is constructed on an erroneous basis. The theory is that the peoples of the world are divided into  
two categories: those who, thanks to their superior education, are qualified to direct production,  
and the others who, because of their limited capacity, are condemned to labor for their employers.  
The whole course of political economy declares this theory. It is thus that the English employing  
class has enriched itself. It is thus that other countries, in developing their industry, are enriching  
themselves at the expense of the backward peoples. But a more profound study of economic life  
in England and other European countries leads us to another conclusion. It is no longer possible  
to become enriched in the same way as England has up to now. Not one civilized country wants to  
remain in the position of furnishing raw materials. All countries aspire to develop manufacturing  
industry and they are all gradually doing so. . . . The road to the development of the welfare of all  
peoples lies only in the union of agriculture and industry and not in the sub-division of peoples  
into industrial and agrarian civilizations. Such sub-division will lead inevitably to incessant wars  
for the capture of markets and cheap labor for industry. . . .  
It follows then that the social revolution, wherever it breaks out, must consider as its first duty  
the increase of production. The first months of emancipation will inevitably increase consumption of goods and production will diminish. And, furthermore, any country achieving a social  
revolution will be surrounded by a ring of neighbors either unfriendly or actually enemies. . . . In  
a word, a revolution will lead inevitably to increased consumption, for a third of the population of  
all Europe lives in misery and suffers from a lack of clothes and other goods. The demands upon  
products will increase while production decreases, and finally famine will come. There is only  
one way of avoiding it. We should understand that as soon as a revolutionary movement begins  
in any country the only possible way out will consist in the workingmen and peasants from the  
beginning taking the whole national economy into their hands and organizing it themselves with  
a view to a rapid increase in production. But they will not be convinced of this necessity except  
when all responsibility for national economy, today in the hands of a multitude of ministers and  
committees, is presented in a simple form to each village and city, in every factory and shop, as  
their own affair, and when they understand that they must direct it themselves.


End file.
